Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood

by Steve Tibble

Overview

The story of the medieval world’s most extraordinary organisations, the Assassins and the Templars
 
The Assassins and the Templars are two of history’s most legendary groups. One was a Shi’ite religious sect, the other a Christian military order created to defend the Holy Land. Violently opposed, they had vastly different reputations, followings, and ambitions. Yet they developed strikingly similar strategies—and their intertwined stories have, oddly enough, uncanny parallels.
 
In this engaging account, Steve Tibble traces the history of these two groups from their origins to their ultimate destruction. He shows how, outnumbered and surrounded, they survived only by perfecting “the promise of death,” either in the form of a Templar charge or an Assassin’s dagger. Death, for themselves or their enemies, was at the core of these extraordinary organisations.
 
Their fanaticism changed the medieval world—and, even up to the present day, in video games and countless conspiracy theories, they have become endlessly conjoined in myth and memory.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300282122
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	11/04/2025
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Steve Tibble is honorary research associate at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author of The Crusader Armies, The Crusader Strategy, Templars, and Crusader Criminals.

Editorial Reviews

An explosive, fast-paced journey into complex politics that brings together two of history’s greatest legends. Here is the real story of the Assassins and Templars, carefully researched and engagingly told.”—Matt Lewis, author of Richard III

“What happens when groups dedicated to martyrdom come into conflict? Assassins and Templars shows how two corporate and cult-like groups divided by faith and methodology were united in their attempts to survive and their demise at the hands of the Mamluks and Mongols.”—Jessalynn Bird, editor of Papacy, Crusade, and Christian-Muslim Relations

“Yes – truth is stranger than fiction! We have here a significant work of scholarship: bold, innovative, well written and thoroughly persuasive.”—Peter W. Edbury, author of The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade

“A gripping tale not just of ideological fanatics but also of the politicians who used them to do the slaughter then ruthlessly eliminated them when their usefulness was at an end.”—Jonathan Harris, author of The Lost World of Byzantium

“An extremely readable narrative on an incredibly complex and ill understood relationship between a Muslim and a Christian group – filled with original insights and new interpretations.”—Farhad Daftary, author of The Assassin Legends

From the Publisher

2025-08-02
An Islamic sect and a Christian military order who shared a willingness to die.

Tibble, author ofThe Crusader Strategy: Defending the Holy Land, sets his scene in the Middle East in 1100, a disturbed time for many Islamic regimes when, out of the blue, the Crusaders appeared. After a bloody decade, four Christian “Crusader states” emerged that carried on but shrank over the next two centuries. Tibble reminds readers that neither of the two religions was monolithic and that Islam remains divided primarily into Shia and Sunni denominations. The assassins arose in Shiite Persia shortly before Crusaders arrived. Persia had recently been conquered by Sunni Turks, so there was no shortage of unhappy believers, and a charismatic leader founded a Shiite sect convinced that they were God’s chosen people. A fringe movement, it lacked numbers but developed an effective tactic. Believing that eternal rewards awaited those who eliminated the enemies of God, members regularly murdered those who stood in their way. This made a spectacular impression, and they enjoyed modest success, surviving until the Mongol invasion two centuries later. Drawing a parallel, the author introduces a concurrent Christian military order, the Knights Templar. Having conquered the Holy Land, most Crusaders returned home. When those who remained had difficulty fending off attacks from surrounding Islamic states, a few pious knights formed a brotherhood dedicated to protecting pilgrims. Attracting followers and money from Europe, the Knights Templar grew from a military order willing to die serving Christ into a wealthy organization whose influence rivaled that of European monarchs. Two centuries later, when the tide had turned against the Crusaders, Philip IV of France, always short of money, confiscated its wealth and executed most of its leaders. With no deep lessons to deliver, Tibble’s final chapter discusses the bestselling sci-fi fantasy video gameAssassin’s Creed, which is not historically accurate but ingenious.

Bloody medieval geopolitics in the service of God.

Kirkus Reviews